


Shelter

by methylviolet10b



Series: Tecks [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adventure, Fluff, Gen, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 10:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What price shelter?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> A fluffy, largely-pointless tag to How Much For That Kitten? If you haven't read that one, this one won't make any sense. Astute readers of ACD canon will spot the in-joke, I'm sure. Non-canon-addicts can see the end notes for an explanation.

 

The days-old pup nosed hopefully at his fingers. His eyes, still closed and blind, squinched as he tried to take one of them in his mouth.

“Lizzie isn’t producing enough milk for all of them, and keeps rejecting him.” Edward’s voice was sad, and a deep sigh stirred the hairs of his grey mustache. He touched one gnarled, arthritic finger to the tiny pup’s back before going back to measuring out formula. “He’ll have to be bottle-fed and hand-reared if he’s to have any chance at all. Even then, odds are he won’t make it. I hate to ask it of you, but you’ve been remarkably successful in the past. Do you think you could take this little fellow on?”

Tecks nodded once, his eyes glued to the tiny body lying so light and helpless in his hands. The pup was too thin, too small. He could feel the fragile bones through the delicate skin, the whirring heartbeat. But the pup kept nosing Tecks’ finger, showing faint signs of life, of will, signs he hadn’t shown at all when he’d followed Edward into the treatment room just down the hall from his own room.

His room. It still felt funny to think that, have that. A room. A place. A pack to belong to, one that had people.

For the first six months after Sherlock asked for his help on a “long-term project” and brought him here, he’d never left anything of his in that room – a little space in the back, with a narrow bed and a blanket and a pillow, not too far from the washroom – during the day. He’d kept his rucksack on and his friends with him, even when it made the work twice as awkward. He’d even slept out sometimes, just to prove to himself that he still could. That he would be fine when he was told to leave this place, when he had to go. Because he always had to go. He didn’t have a place. He didn’t belong to anyone or anything except his animal friends. He certainly didn’t belong with people.

But he wasn’t told to go. And this was a good place. And Edward and Carolyn really did need his help. He couldn’t have stayed, otherwise. Edward was old, his joints increasingly painful, his hazel eyes still keen and his mind still sharp but his body increasingly unable to handle the physical workload. Carolyn was just as smart as her dad, just as kind, and physically a lot stronger than she looked, but her wheelchair had its limits. It was far easier for them both to have Tecks around to do certain things, handle the heavy physical work and the things that required rapid or nimble responses. To help work with the dogs.

Oh, the dogs! Such beautiful dogs!

The hounds, the keen-nosed, clean-limbed, strong-bodied wonders that were the heart and soul of Edward’s little business. Then there were the foster dogs, the ones Edward and Carolyn took in and gentled and trained until they found the right people for them. Even the visitor dogs, the ones that they boarded for a little while, or took in for special training courses, were a joy, bright-eyed and keen and well-cared-for, even before Tecks helped care for them.

There were other animals, too, strays that Edward and Carolyn sheltered and occasionally adopted. Sometimes Tecks thought of himself as one of them (or one of six of them, as they’d been at the time he first came to this place, trailing suspiciously behind Sherlock and John). But that was all right. Like the other strays, they had their place; and unlike the others, they earned their keep. Even John – not Sherlock’s John, but Carolyn’s John, her solider husband – had said as much, that Tecks helped keep things running, that he was needed, had been needed for years. Had smiled at him, had welcomed and accepted him, on one of his all-too-brief periods home between deployments. And Carolyn’s John hadn’t seemed to mind Tecks’ silence, or his few halting, stammering words, any more than Carolyn or Edward did.

Maybe there wouldn’t be a place for him once Carolyn’s John came home for good, was here to do the physical day-to-day work Tecks did, the walking and exercising and cleaning and basic training. Maybe, one day, he’d have to go after all.

But for today – as for the last two years and more – he had a place to stay. To belong. A place where he was needed. Wanted, even.

Boots rose from his usual perch on Tecks’ shoulder and padded nimbly halfway down his arm, close enough to sniff delicately at the little rejected pup. His whiskers arched forward, and then he began to purr.

“Ah.” Edward paused in preparing a bottle to look first at Boots, then at Tecks, and finally at the little pup Tecks held. “I see Boots approves. One of yours, then?”

Tecks nodded again. The easy acceptance was a daily miracle, something Tecks didn’t think he’d ever get used to, any more than he’d ever take for granted the comfort of being regularly clean, and warm, and not-hungry. The kindness. The care for him and his friends, the shared satisfaction of work well done, the mutual joy when things went well, the sorrow when things went badly; all miracles, all treasured. He could never repay these things, any more than he could truly repay Sherlock for having brought him here.

Edward grinned and handed Tecks the bottle. “I hoped as much. What will you name him?”

Boots edged closer to the pup and started licking him, washing him as he’d once been washed as a kitten by Tolly. Dear, enormous, great-hearted Tolly, who’d accepted Boots as thoroughly as he’d accepted Tecks, regardless of species. Tolly, who’d cared for all of them, who’d accepted Edward and Carolyn too, and helped Tecks to do the same. Tolly, gone now, but never forgotten.

Tecks smiled and gave his new friend his name, spoke it aloud to his human friend and his feline friend alike, said it for all to hear. “T-toby. His n-na-m-m-me is-s Toby.”

**Author's Note:**

> "Toby" is the name of the bloodhound Holmes and Watson use in 'The Sign of the Four.' He also makes an appearance in The Great Mouse Detective. ;-)
> 
> Originally published August 3, 2011.


End file.
